U2, stage-front position in a crowd of nearly 70,000, Where the Streets Have No Name and ending with my favourite two songs, Kite and Bad...I have recently experienced death and the heavenly surrounds that ensue. I did have to wait at the Telstra Dome for 13 hours for that experience, though. Kanye West was pretty good, too.

I have just witnessed the beginning of the end of my life as I currently know it.

Bec and I went for a particularly long walk last night. We eventually ended up at the Lark Distillery on Davey Street, where there was African music, some disturbing belly dancers and, so we found out, a barman who we both knew. After talking with Rob (the barman) for a little while, Bec got a free coffee, I got the most awesome beer I've ever had and once that was done Rob proceeded to pour eight shots of their house distilled spirits. Rob then gave us a vodka shot each and Bec and a gin shot after that (I hate gin, so I refrained). Now that's what I call good service.

After all that we had pizza with Peter and Joel, which made the shots at the Lark Distillery look tame.

Now what?

Let me take this opportunity to present to you some of the many reasons why America has absolutely nothing to celebrate.

"Competitive eating is a popular sport in America" - yes, that's correct, competitive eating. Maybe it's just me, but this seems more like an anti-sport. Oh, and just to make it more laughable, in the most recent Independence Day Hot Dog Eating Contest, it was a tiny Japanese man who won (breaking his own world record in the process) - Here. Beaten at their own anti-sport.

The coalition is fading

The space program is run by morons.



"Foam still vexes NASA" - gosh, just imagine how perplexed they are by velcro.

The CIA have given up their search for Bin Laden.

Oh, and interests rates just keep on going up.

America is a nation full of stupid, ignorant, fat, useless losers with massive debt problems. How on earth do they find reason to celebrate? Year after year they seem to come across the sudden realisation that it could be worse, they could be Canadian. They call this Independence Day.

Joel and I went to see Augie March play at the Republic Bar last night. Now, that's interesting enough in itself, but the more interesting part is how Joel managed to see the concert despite the fact that it was sold out and he didn't have a ticket. You see, if you walk down to the other end of the block that the Republic Bar is on, walk down the side street and turn into the first alley/private driveway that you find, you can scale an eight foot fence with barbed wire and jump into the parking lot of a small industrial building. From there you can make your way to a fence that leads into someone's backyard. In that backyard you will find a shed onto which you should climb and then jump off that into a small courtyard with a kayak. Next you jump the tall wire fence that separates you and the parking area of the building adjacent the Republic Bar. Once in this parking area, it's pretty obvious; scale the wall of the building there to get on the roof, which leads you quite easily to the roof of the Republic Bar. Now, you're going to find yourself above the beer garden and only metres away from the balcony that leads down to the beer garden and inside into the top bar. Be careful now, you're also directly above the area in which the security guards gather. Wait until the security guards aren't there, or at best aren't looking, and jump to the balcony. Dust yourself off and give yourself a pat on the back.

What I advise against, though, is getting so drunk at the concert that, when you get out and Joel wants to show you how he snuck in, you decide to jump the first fence, only to realise that the only way out is the way I have mentioned above. Oh, and don't let Joel mistake corrugated fibre glass for corrugated iron.

By the way, the concert was great. 

Don't bring 'em up if you can't put 'em down...

The German slut and I skipped calculus today, then I went down to uni to pick up this week's physics assignment and noticed that I was just in time for my physics class - needless to say, I got to the door, turned around and came home. I didn't even manage to pick up a copy of the assignment, so that was a wasted effort. Although, I did orgynise (The Chris is alive and well) a meeting with Eoin, so that I can get my HECS money straight into my bank account so I can go traveling at the end of the year. Speaking of that, does anyone want to travel with me? Casey wants to go on a Contiki tour now (I would rather eat a hedgehog that has been drinking period blood and petrol for the past week, then run a fuse down my throat and set it alight - and I'm not being dramatic, I tell you) and Jannika...well, God knows. Joel wants to go, but he may not have the money. So, is there anyone out there who wants to go to Europe/America/New Zealand/an unguided tour of the Tigris(not really)?

I also found out that my mother and brother are coming down for a couple days next semester for my birthday. Now I'm hoping that they find a nice hotel to stay in.

The following is from F. Scott Fitzgerald's 'This Side of Paradise'.

"I'll never be a poet," said Amory as he finished. "I'm not enough of a sensualist really; there are only a few obvious things that I notice as primarily beautiful: women, spring evenings, music at night, the sea; I don't catch the subtle things like 'silver-snarling trumpets.' I may turn out an intellectual, but I'll never write anything but mediocre poetry."

...and on that note, I wrote a poem:

Failed misery in searching words,
despairing at all things unsaid.
The words, they write themselves,
backwards, forwards - with a hint of gin,
on the morning, sober tongue.

Still minds in the daylight, birds
chirping for the Eucharist bread.
At dawn, at dusk! Twelve by twelve!
The weary sun casts shadows of sin,
on the mourning, sombre tongue.

I'll never be a poet if all I can write about is how I'll never be a poet. Eventually, I'll resign myself to a fate of reasonable prose, but I'll never embrace it.

I got bored a couple weeks back, so I decided to revive my old high-school secret society/magazine/internet forum in which James and I tell everyone how stupid they are (gave up on that part). It's currently under construction; most of the links won't work and it may look a little dodgy if you have a screen resolution less than 1024x768, but the forums are up and running.

The address is www.angrydaisies.com. We will (eventually) be producing some publication (of sorts) that will be distributed at a few universities around Australia and the world (Canada, New Zealand and England with any luck).

The logos were designed by Matt Smith and all flash animations were made by James Maasdorp.

Hope everyone (except those of the lowest caste) had a great year and a great new year celebration. Undoubtedly Buffy was sober for the whole ordeal, although I have my doubts about Taylor's sobriety. New Years allows us the time to reflect on the year gone, vow to make amends and then forget about it all the next week - it's a wonderful time, and in keeping with the spirit I decided what-the-fuck it is that I'm going to do with my life. Of course, I say that now but I'm just as likely to become an exceedingly poor fiction writer living in an eight square-metre apartment in the centre of St. Petersburg.

I have plans to leave the house both mentally and physically for a whole day this week - should be good. I'm also going to write something fictional, finish off a poem that James and I started nearly a month ago (it's decent, but lapses into postmodern madness at times), shoot a short film that my eldest brother and I wrote the script to a few weeks ago and read both philosophy and some fiction (thank God for Umberto Eco's presence in the late 20th century).


Was listening to Green Day earlier today. A lyric that I'd never noticed: I went to a whore who said my life's a bore. Seconds of amusement.